IX International Piano Festival
of Oeiras

After finishing her studies at Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa with the maximum classification under the supervision of the pianist Tania Achot, and a master's degree in piano performance at Catholic University of Porto with Filipe Pinto Ribeiro, she continued her musical studies at Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel with Jan Michiels and in Madrid with Claudio Mehner. She obtained her PHD degree in 2015 with “Summa cum laude” at the Escola das Artes of the Catholic University Porto under the orientation of the pianist Sofia Lourenço and the composer Paulo Ferreira Lopes.

She won several national and international prizes, including “Maria Campina” and “Princess Lalla Meryem”, and performed as soloist with the Brussels Chamber Orchestra, as a prize of Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel Competition for students of all instruments. She has played, since 2006, in countries as France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Brazil and China, as well as in the main Portuguese festivals and concert halls, including Dias da Música, Sintra Festival, Oeiras Festival, Mafra Festival, Centro Cultural de Belém, Auditório Ruy de Carvalho, Centro Cultural de Cascais and Olga Cadaval Cultural Center, as soloist and with the leading Portuguese orchestras and conductors.

She is the author of the book "Schumann´s Carnaval: work of genius and madness" (based in her PhD dissertation and with a preface of Professor Mário de Vieira de Carvalho) and has recorded five CDs: "Waltz Transfigured" with works by Schubert and Schumann, “Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1" with Orquestra do Norte, "Encounter", with works by Mozart and Schumann, "Identity", with music by Debussy, Prokofiev and Liszt and most recent “Terra”, with works by Mussorgsky, Bartók, Albéniz.

Pianist of great originality, Teresa da Palma Pereira has been dedicated, in the last years, to a set of projects that aim to bring erudite music to new audiences, performing several cycles of commented recitals, as "Communication with music", "Classics outdoors", Classics for All" and " Classics in the Bookstore", at Fundação Portuguesa das Comunicações, Palace of the Aciprestes, in Linda-a-Velha, social quarters and the bookstore “Ler Devagar”, in Alcântara, respectively.

She´s also the Artistic Director of the Oeiras International Piano Festival since 2018.

From a very young age, Ukrainian pianist Anna Fedorova demonstrated innate musical maturity and incredible technical abilities. Her live recording of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 has over 45 million views on YouTube and has been acclaimed by critics and world-renowned musicians. She performs regularly in the world's most prestigious concert halls, such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, the Tonhalle Zurich, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, the Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo, and the Barbican Centre and Royal Albert Hall in London.

As a soloist, Anna Fedorova has performed with many outstanding orchestras, including the Philharmonic Orchestra, the Verbier Festival Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic, the Tokyo Symphony, the Yomiuri Orchestra, the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, and the Netherlands Philharmonic, with conductors such as Daniel Harding, Vasily Petrenko, Gianandrea Noseda, Jaap van Zweden, and others. Dubbed the “house pianist” (Telegraaf) of the Concertgebouw, Anna Fedorova has given over 45 concerts at this prestigious concert hall in Amsterdam, often broadcast live. She is a regular guest at major music festivals, such as the Verbier and Menuhin Festivals in Switzerland, the Stift Music Festival in the Netherlands, the Sintra Festival in Portugal, and the Ravinia Festival in the USA. In July 2022, Anna performed with the Verbier Festival Orchestra under the baton of Gianandrea Noseda at the opening of the Verbier Festival. A week later, she made her debut at the La Roque d'Anthéron international piano festival with a solo recital, acclaimed by the local and international press.

On March 6, 2022, she was one of the first to start a charity concert to raise funds for the victims of the war in Ukraine, together with her musician friends, Interartists Amsterdam, and the Concertgebouw. Having raised over €100,000 on that first night, she has continued to perform in charity concerts for Ukraine ever since. During the summer of 2022, she was the solo pianist for the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, performing under the baton of Keri-Lynn Wilson at the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera, the Royal Albert Hall in London (BBC Proms televised concert), Munich, the Chorégies d'Orange, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Edinburgh Festival, Summer at Snape Maltings, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Lincoln Center in New York (twice), and the Kennedy Center in Washington. The New York Times noted that “Pianist Anna Fedorova was a sensitive and poetic soloist in Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2, a tribute to Polish support for the Freedom Orchestra project.”

In 2018, Anna Fedorova signed a contract with Channel Classics Records. By early 2023, she will have released three solo piano albums, four chamber music albums, and all of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concertos with the St. Gallen Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Modestas Pitrenas. BBC Music Magazine awarded a 5-star rating to her first album, featuring Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 1, Preludes, and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. BBC Music Magazine also published a 5-star review of Anna Fedorova's interpretation of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 4, noting that “the clarity of thought and feeling behind these interpretations of Rachmaninoff's concertos is truly refreshing: this is certainly not just another ‘Rach 2’.” It was Classic FM's Album of the Weekend, received a 10-star review from Luister Magazine, and became Album of the Week on Scala Radio upon its release in October 2022. Anna Fedorova, the Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen, and Modestas Pitrenas recorded Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 in November 2022, which will complete their cycle of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concertos in May 2023, the year of the composer's 150th anniversary.

Anna Fedorova graduated from the Lysenko Music School in Kiev, where she studied with Borys Fedorov, and from the Accademia Pianistica in Imola, Italy, where she studied with Leonid Margarius. She obtained her Master's degree and Artist Diploma at the Royal College of Music in London under the guidance of Norma Fisher. Her mentors include Alfred Brendel, Menahem Pressler, Steven Isserlis, and Sir András Schiff.
In 2022, Anna Fedorova and double bassist Nicholas Santangelo Schwartz founded the Davidsbündler Music Academy in The Hague. Before the Academy's official opening in September 2022, the Davidsbündler Foundation had already begun offering high-quality music education to Ukrainian refugees who had fled to the Netherlands. The Foundation continues to do so in 2023 and offers full scholarships to talented young pianists and string players from low-income families, including 12 young Ukrainian pianists.

Acclaimed for his highly sensitive touch and technical brilliance, Alexei Volodin is in demand by orchestras at the highest level. He possesses an extraordinarily diverse repertoire from Beethoven and Brahms through Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev and Scriabin, to Shchedrin and Medtner.

Highlights of the 2022/23 season include returns to Singapore Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, and Euskadiko Orkestra, and first appearances with Kyoto Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal. Volodin will join Orchestre de chambre fribourgeois at Besançon International Music Festival and tour with Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen throughout Belgium and the Netherlands with Chopin Piano Concerto No.1. He returns to SWR Symphonieorchester in a chamber concert of Franck and Schoenberg at the Pentecost Festival Baden-Baden and joins forces with Igor Levit for duo performances at Wigmore Hall and Lucerne Piano Festival.

Previous seasons have included performances with Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, NCPA Orchestra China, BBC Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, The Mariinsky Orchestra and St Petersburg Philharmonic, working with conductors Semyon Bychkov, Stanislav Kochanovsky and Robert Trevino.

Volodin regularly appears in recital in venues such as Wiener Konzerthaus, Barcelona’s Palau de la Música, Mariinsky Theatre, Paris’ Philharmonie, Alte Oper Frankfurt and Madrid’s Auditorio Nacional de Música. This season he performs at Tonhalle Zürich, Geneva, Taipei National Concert Hall, Lithuanian National Philharmonic Hall, and additional dates in Spain.

An active chamber musician, he has a long-standing collaboration with many artists including Sol Gabetta. Previous chamber partners include Janine Jansen, Julian Rachlin, and Mischa Maisky, as well as the Borodin Quartet, Modigliani Quartet, Cuarteto Casals and Cremona Quartet.

Volodin’s latest album with the Mariinsky label was Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No.4, conducted by Gergiev. Recording for Challenge Classics, Volodin’s disc of solo Rachmaninov works was released in 2013. He also recorded a solo album of Schumann, Ravel and Scriabin, and his earlier Chopin disc won a Choc de Classica and was awarded five stars by Diapason.

A regular artist at festivals, Volodin has performed at Kaposvár International Chamber Music Festival, Festival Les nuits du Château de la Moutte, Variations Musicales de Tannay, Bad Kissingen Sommer Festival, La Roque d’Anthéron, Les Rencontres Musicales d’Évian, Festival La Folle Journée, the White Nights Festival in St Petersburg, St. Magnus International Festival, Interharmony Festival, and the Moscow Easter Festival.

Born in 1977 in Leningrad, Alexei Volodin studied at Moscow’s Gnessin Academy and later with Eliso Virsaladze at the Moscow Conservatoire. In 2001, he continued his studies at the International Piano Academy Lake Como and gained international recognition following his victory at the International Géza Anda Competition in Zürich in 2003.

Alexei Volodin is an exclusive Steinway artist.

Alim Beisembayev achieved international prominence after winning First Prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2021 with a performance of Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, alongside the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Andrew Manze. He also received the medici.tv Audience Award and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society Award for Contemporary Performance.
In 2023, Alim became one of the highlights of the BBC Proms when, with only two days' notice, he stepped in to perform Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto with the London Symphony and John Wilson. The performance was hailed as “the kind we thought we could only hear in our dreams” (iNews, Jessica Duchen) and described by Georgia Mann of BBC Radio 3 as “the birth of a star.” Later that season, he received the prestigious 2024 Critics' Circle Young Artist Award.

Following on from his recital debut at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London in early 2022, the 2022/23 season sees Yoav Levanon perform solo recitals at Boulez Saal in Berlin, Grand Auditorium de Radio France in Paris, Munich’s Prinzregententheater, Settimane Musicali di Ascona and the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad as well as on a tour of the US for the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Invitations from orchestras will lead him to the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Israel Chamber Orchestra and the North Netherlands Orchestra on tour in the Netherlands to include a stop at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Highlights of the 2025-26 season include debuts with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (Jamie Martin), Philharmonic (Adam Hickox), Ulster Orchestra (Tom Fetherstonhaugh), Gävle Symphony Orchestra (Christian Reif), Belgrade Philharmonic (Julio Garcia Vico), and Macedonian Philharmonic (Emil Tabakov). He also returns to the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (Kirill Karabits) and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (Domingo Hindoyan).

In recent seasons, Alim has given the world premiere of Eleanor Alberga's Piano Concerto with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, prompting The Telegraph to write: “There is no pianist under 30 in the world I would rather hear.” He has also performed with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (Tchaikovsky No. 1), the Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra (Tchaikovsky No. 1), Sinfonietta Krakow (Mozart No. 20), and the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra Ostrava (Ravel, Concerto for the Left Hand), among others.
As a recitalist, Alim has performed at major venues and festivals around the world, including the BBC Proms, Queen Elizabeth Hall (Southbank Centre), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Wigmore Hall, Seoul Arts Centre, Carnegie Hall, Victoria Concert Hall (Singapore), Chopin Institute (Warsaw), Oxford Piano Festival, Fondation Louis Vuitton (Paris), and Cliburn Concerts. He has toured Europe with the Steinway Prizewinning Concerts Network and South Korea with the World Culture Network.

His debut recording, Liszt's “12 Transcendental Études,” was released by Warner Classics in 2022 and received critical acclaim.
Born in Kazakhstan in 1998, Alim began his musical education in Kazakhstan and Russia before continuing his studies at the Purcell School for Young Musicians in the United Kingdom. He has won numerous awards as a young pianist, including the Van Cliburn Junior Competition in Fort Worth, Texas. Much of Alim's musical training was under the guidance of Tessa Nicholson, with whom he studied from the age of 14 and throughout his studies at the Royal Academy of Music. In 2023, he completed his Master's Degree in Performance and Artist Diploma at the Royal College of Music under the guidance of Professor Vanessa Latarche.

Alim has generously received support from numerous scholarships, including the Imogen Cooper Music Trust, ABRSM, Countess of Munster Musical Trust, Hattori Foundation, Drake Calleja Fund, and Talent Unlimited.

“At the age of 19, Israeli pianist Yoav Levanon already shows tremendous power and maturity”, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung commented on the young pianist’s impressive appearance at the 2022 Europa Open Air in Frankfurt where he performed Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Alain Altinoglu. The televised concert took place in front of an audience of 25,000 at site and almost half a million viewers worldwide.

Following on from his recital debut at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London in early 2022, the 2022/23 season sees Yoav Levanon perform solo recitals at Boulez Saal in Berlin, Grand Auditorium de Radio France in Paris, Munich’s Prinzregententheater, Settimane Musicali di Ascona and the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad as well as on a tour of the US for the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Invitations from orchestras will lead him to the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Israel Chamber Orchestra and the North Netherlands Orchestra on tour in the Netherlands to include a stop at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Previous appearances include a solo performance in a “Piano Summit” presented by Martha Argerich at Schloss Elmau followed by a recital at the Piano aux Jacobins Festival in Toulouse and a recital at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. His performance was highly praised in a critic in Diapason: “Yoav Levanon is not only a stunning virtuoso. His assertive interpretative choices already make him an authentic musician, who has everything to become one of the major pianists of this century.”

At the beginning of 2021, Yoav Levanon took part in a filmed project with Daniel Barenboim and soon after he signed an exclusive recording agreement with Warner Classics. His debut album A Monument for Beethoven with the label was released in May 2022. It attracted great attention from reviewers worldwide and garnered many excellent reviews.

Yoav Levanon first appeared on stage at the age of 4 and soon became a winner of his first National Piano Competition in Israel. He won his first Gold Medal at an International Piano Competition in the USA a year later and performed on the prestigious stage of Carnegie Hall in New York. Following his orchestral debut with the Israel Chamber Orchestra he went on to take part in the Tsinandali Festival, Georgia, where he played Mozart and Bach Concertos for Two Pianos and Orchestra with acclaimed pianist Sergei Babayan. Later he received the ”Young Talent Award” of the Fundación Excelentia and performed in a ceremony at the National Auditorium Madrid in the presence of Queen Sofia. During 2018 Yoav performed Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2019, Yoav appeared as one of the youngest pianists ever in the festival history of the renowned Verbier Festival and was celebrated a "discovery". His debut solo recital, broadcast globally on medici.tv, gained the largest online audience of any of the 2019 Festival’s events.

Yoav Levanon is guided by top piano professors and musicians in Israel and abroad. He was privileged to take part in the ‘Piano Program for Outstanding Young Pianists’ at the Jerusalem Music Center, working with the prestigious American concert pianist Murray Perahia as well as working under the guidance of distinguished pianist Sir Andras Schiff in his artist performance studio at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin.

The artistry of Polish pianist Rafał Blechacz is recognized as rare in every respect—his many accolades include being called “a musician in the service of music, searching for its depths, exploring its meaning, and probing its possibilities” (Washington Post) – and stems from his total mastery of the keyboard and his ability to unleash the full expressive range of his instrument. These qualities have supported his artistic and professional development in the years since he won first prize at the 2005 International Chopin Piano Competition. Today, he is among the world's finest pianists, much in demand for the honesty and insight he brings to performances of works of all kinds, from Bach and Beethoven to Chopin and Szymanowski.

The eloquence and intensity of Blechacz's performances at the Chopin Competition, just a few months after his twentieth birthday, were rewarded not only with the winner's medal, but also with four special prizes and the Audience Prize. He signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon in May 2006, following Krystian Zimerman and becoming the second Polish pianist to join the label's international roster of artists. The new relationship began in October 2007 with Blechacz's debut solo album, a combination of Chopin's complete Preludes and Two Nocturnes, Op. 62. His second release—a recital of piano sonatas by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven—was released in 2008, after which he returned to Chopin, recording both piano concertos with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Jerzy Semkow for an album released in 2009 to herald the imminent bicentenary of Chopin's birth.

In 2012, an album featuring solo works by Debussy and Szymanowski was released. In 2013, another acclaimed recording of Chopin followed, this time featuring the composer's mature Polonaises. Blechacz's sixth album for DG, released in 2017, was dedicated to works by Bach, including the Partitas Nos. 1 and 3 and the Italian Concerto. He then joined Korean violinist Bomsori Kim to record a selection of works by Fauré, Debussy, Szymanowski, and Chopin. Released in 2019, this was his first chamber music album for DG.

Entirely dedicated to Chopin, Blechacz's latest release features his insightful interpretations of the Second and Third Piano Sonatas, Nocturne Op. 48 No. 2, and Barcarolle Op. 60. “I have had many experiences with this program, playing it all over the world, in different concert halls and on different pianos,” says the artist. “I really wanted to share the beauty of these compositions with the public.” Chopin was released digitally, on CD, and on vinyl (2 LPs) in March 2023.

Rafał Blechacz was born in the small town of Nakło nad Notecią, in northern Poland, in June 1985. He showed musical talent from an early age and began studying piano at the age of five. Enrolled at the Arthur Rubinstein State Music School in Bydgoszcz, he studied at the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in the city, graduating in May 2007 from Katarzyna Popowa-Zydroń's piano class. Blechacz's excellent technical and artistic attributes ensured a string of successes in competitions, beginning in 2002 with second prize at the Arthur Rubinstein International Competition for Young Pianists in Bydgoszcz, continuing the following year with joint first prize at the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition, and culminating in outright victory at the 2005 International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, where he became the first Polish musician to receive the top prize since Krystian Zimerman thirty years earlier.

In 2010, he won the International Prize of the Accademia Chigiana, awarded annually by the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena to an outstanding pianist or violinist. In 2014, Blechacz received the Gilmore Artist Award, a prestigious prize awarded every four years in recognition of “extraordinary pianistic artistry.” In addition to formal awards and distinctions, he has also received warm praise from experienced colleagues such as Martha Argerich, winner of the Chopin Competition in 1965, who described him as “a very honest, extraordinary, and sensitive artist,” and Irish pianist and pedagogue John O'Conor as “one of the greatest artists I have ever heard in my life.”